Heretofore, liquid fats or oils such as corn oil, rapeseed oil, soybean oil, cottonseed oil, rice oil, safflower oil, sunflower oil, high-oleic safflower oil, high-oleic sunflower oil, sesame oil, and olive oil have been mainly used as fats or oils for cooking. The fats or oils for cooking are required to have properties such as low-temperature stability and an ability to avoid reducing the taste and flavor of a food.
Meanwhile, a triterpene alcohol is a tetracyclic compound having 30 or 31 carbon atoms and is a component widely distributed in plants such as rice bran, wheat, sesame, soybean, cocoa, coconut, corn seeds, olive seeds, and aloe. Further, the triterpene alcohol is a major component of an alcohol part constituting γ-oryzanol. A variety of reports have been made on physiological functions of the triterpene alcohol and the like, and the triterpene alcohol is known to have a blood cholesterol-reducing effect and a lipid absorption-suppressing effect and the like (for example, Non Patent Document 1 and Patent Document 1).
Based on recent health trends, an attempt to impart the physiological functions of the triterpene alcohol and the like to edible oils has been made, and there have been reported, for example, an edible fat or oil which includes oryzanol, a free type or fatty acid ester type phytosterol, and a free type or fatty acid ester type triterpene alcohol and has a blood lipid-mitigating function (Patent Document 2), and an edible oil which includes a tocopherol, a tocotrienol, a free type sterol, a sterol ester, a cycloartenol, and a saturated fat and can reduce the synthesis, absorption, and blood level of cholesterol and increase excretion of cholesterol (Patent Document 3).